ALRC revisits the legal rights of children and young people in Australia
It is now a little over ten years since the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (now the Australian Human Rights Commission) released the landmark 1997 report Seen and Heard: Priority for Children in the Legal Process (ALRC Report 84). Seen and Heard represented the culmination of a …
News/Media Release
Read moreUniform Evidence Law
In July 2004, the Attorney-General of Australia asked the ALRC to examine the operation of the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth).The legislation is based on a uniform Evidence Act scheme, which was the product of a previous ALRC inquiry. At the time of the commencement of this latest Evidence inquiry, the Commonwealth, New South Wales, Tasmania, …
Inquiries
Read moreMomentum growing for national evidence law
Monday, 4 July 2005: Almost 20 years since the Australian Law Reform Commission first warned that Australia ’s jumble of evidence laws needed urgent overhaul, momentum is finally gathering to finish the job, with the ALRC joining with law reformers from almost every state and territory in an unprecedented review of evidence legislation. “Evidence law …
News/Media Release
Read moreProtection of human genetic information
The terms of reference directed the ALRC and the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC) to consider, with respect to human genetic information and the samples from which such information is derived, how best to:protect privacy;protect against unfair discrimination; andensure the highest ethical standards in research and practice.The experience of the inquiry, mirrored overseas, is that …
Inquiries
Read moreAustralia’s Federal Record: A Review of Archives Act 1983 (ALRC Report 85)
ALRC Report 85 was tabled in federal Parliament in July 1998, representing the first major review of the Archives Act 1983 (Cth), which was drafted at a time when Commonwealth government records were predominantly in paper format. View ALRC Report 85 in HTML on the AustLII website. This publication is available for purchase in book format.
Publications
Read moreAged Care Legislation for the Commonwealth
ALRC Report 72 was the second of three reports, which resulted from a series of inquiries into Acts administered by the Department of Health and Family Services. This reference was received in August 1992.ALRC Report 72 identifies problems with the outdated and complicated legislation dealing with aged care services, in particular the National Health Act …
Inquiries
Read moreThe Coming of Age: New Aged Care Legislation for the Commonwealth (ALRC Report 72)
ALRC Report 72 (tabled March 1995) was the second of three reports, which resulted from a series of inquiries into Acts administered by the Department of Health and Family Services. It identifies problems with the outdated and complicated legislation dealing with aged care services, in particular the National Health Act 1953 (Cth) and the Aged …
Publications
Read moreEquality before the law
The ALRC took the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as its starting point.The ALRC inquiry found the legal system failed women in five key areas by:leaving them in the dark—women often have difficulty finding relevant information;brutalising the victim—even when women are aware of their rights, they often find …
Inquiries
Read moreMulticulturalism and the Law (ALRC Report 57)
ALRC Report 57 (tabled April 1992) examined the principles underlying Australian family law, criminal law and contract law and the ways disputes about them are resolved, to see if they take enough account of the cultural diversity of Australian society.The report reviewed the extent to which the law recognises, accommodates, respects and protects the rights …
Publications
Read moreMulticulturalism and the law
During the course of the inquiry, several consultation papers were released:An issues paper—Multiculturalism and the Law (ALRC IP 9) in 1990; andThree discussion papers in 1991—Multiculturalism: Family Law (ALRC DP 46); Multiculturalism: Criminal Law (ALRC DP 48); and Multiculturalism: Consumer Contracts (ALRC DP 49).The final report (ALRC Report 57) examined the principles underlying Australian family …
Inquiries
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